


The Outlaw State of Mind, Or: Might as Well Get Stoned

by Todteufelritter



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Comedy, Drinking, Drug Use, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Marijuana, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26988502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todteufelritter/pseuds/Todteufelritter
Summary: Kyoshi, Wong and Kirima get high on hashish together. An occasionally lighthearted character study of Kyoshi as she is still finding her way as an Avatar, plus adding that Wong and Kirima interaction that was missing in ‘Shadow’. Also includes allusions to violence and some Rangi related thirst because hey, this is Avatar Kyoshi we’re talking about and it’s not a Kyoshi story without a corpse or two and our heroine lusting after her girlfriend. Takes place 6 months after the events of Shadow of Kyoshi. Yes I named it after 2 Chris Stapleton songs because I picture Kyoshi as a country fan.Now with a second chapter, from Rangi's POV set a few months later.
Relationships: Kyoshi/Rangi (Avatar)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

Kyoshi was pacing. Rangi had left yesterday at noon. It was just past lunchtime, if Kyoshi had had lunch (she had not). Only 24 hours had passed, and Kyoshi was already pacing. She had hardly slept the night before - sleeping alone was cold and fitful without Rangi’s warmth wrapped around her. Last night her thoughts had been shapeless and illusive, just formed enough to keep her up. Today they were sharp, insistent, and wouldn’t let her a moment’s peace. 

Too much had happened - in the past month - In the past 2 years, truthfully, but the last month had been a whirlwind. In that month she had received grisly reports of atrocities by Daofei and corrupt officials, planned and executed an attack on the citadel of a major earth kingdom city (Taku), overthrown its governor, driven out its Daofei boss and ended the career of its chief magistrate. No, she had not ended his career. She had killed him, and unlike the other deaths on her conscience, this rested easy. Her thoughts rushed again to his last moments - how he had known so much about her, how he had threatened not her but Rangi, and how she had decided in an instant that a man like that was too vile and dangerous to leave alive. It was so easy to forget how much blood was inside someone but easy enough to remember once you cut their throat. She had killed men more powerful than him, she had killed men more important than him and she had killed men far dearer to her own heart than him. The only thing that bothered her about the magistrate’s death was how easy it had been. Even if he had boiled that teenaged boy alive. Still, burying the magistrate next to the boy he’d killed had been an inspired touch. As had looting the governor’s palace and the magistrate’s house and distributing their jade and gold to the townsfolk. As had burning the palace with firebending and then pulling the ruins down with earthbending so that only piles of rubble remained - in many ways, this mission had been a resounding success. Hopefully the other corrupt officials of the Earth Kingdom would take notice. If she wasn’t going to play their political games, if she wasn’t going to follow in the footsteps of Szeto and become a bureaucrat, at least she could scare them into reining in the worst of their excesses. They would replace the governor, the daofei would return, but perhaps the new bosses of Taku would step lighter and impale fewer of their citizens.

Kyoshi shook her head and tried to think of more pleasant thoughts. If risking her life, overthrowing a government and tearing down a palace with the force of her bending was all it took to get Rangi to greet her like that, perhaps she would have to do all that more often. Kyoshi smiled momentarily to think of the details - Rangi’s first embrace on her return, her anger at Kyoshi’s recklessness giving way to relief and then to passion. It had been sweet, and earnest, with none of Rangi’s usual teasing or tormenting or pretense of reserve. And the rest of the night - Kyoshi could treasure that memory for the rest of her life, the best night among many they’d spent together. She let her thoughts linger on Rangi for a while, running through that night, the next morning, the next long day in bed...Kyoshi remembered it all. 

After a time lost in her reverie, she sighed. Rangi wasn’t here. She wouldn’t be here for a month or more. Even Jinpa was gone for a week, and Hei-Ran with them. Other than vowing to herself to avoid Horse Stance for two weeks, train with her war-fan forms and read even more classical political philosophy, Kyoshi had nothing to do. No wonder she was so restless. She was alone with her thoughts, and except for her more pleasant memories, few of these thoughts were good. She did not know what to do knowing that someone was spying on her and Rangi, she did not know how to protect her lover. In that way she was almost glad Rangi was gone. She had too many enemies, and she had no doubt made more over the past month - though that Captain Chin had seemed helpful. He was supposedly doing a fine job of scattering the daofei bands in the Western Earth Kingdom. Kyoshi would have to watch his career, maybe he could…

Kyoshi shook her head again. She needed to get out of this house. She needed fresh air, even if it was freezing out. She wrapped a wool-silk robe over her gown and headed out. There was a thin layer of snow on the ground, laying atop the melted remains of the snow before, and the snow was still falling. The air was dry and cold - Kyoshi could hear Aunt Mui fretting about her skin as the wind whipped her cheeks. She liked it, in truth. The cold reminded her she was alive. Kyoshi set off down the road, walking nowhere in particular. 

Kyoshi’s new house was on the other end of Yokoya from Yun’s old palace. It was just as well. Kyoshi gave the ruins a wide berth - bad memories laid atop each other there, and even the good ones were poisoned with grief. Kyoshi walked up and away, into the hills. She tried to meditate as she walked, to truly see the flakes of snow falling, the stark branches of the trees against the dirty grey sky, but after a few minutes her mind wandered back to spying and politics and a dozen questions - about Captain Chin, the Earth King, the Sages, the Daofei, all of them. She may have resolved never to play their games, but still, this kingdom and this world was her charge. She had killed another man. How many more would she kill? What was the difference between her and Lao Ge or worse, Jianzhu? Some Daofei were saying that the Avatar had left the world, and that a demonic spirit had taken her place. Meanwhile the sages had already dubbed her Kyoshi the Terrible - she played with how it sounded in her head - Blessed Yangchen, Kuruk the Unready, and Kyoshi the Terrible. As useful as her reputation might be, Kyoshi couldn’t help but take it personally. 

Maybe she should have gone to an air temple instead of staying here so near so many ghosts. But even that would probably remind her of her mother. Both her past and her future haunted her wherever she went. And the present could only keep them at bay when she was at work. Or in bed with Rangi.

The snow fell thicker and harder, and the wind picked up. What had been a flurry was gaining strength into a true storm, and it threatened to become a blizzard. Kyoshi bent the wind and the snow around her and away from her, walking in a dry, still bubble, surrounded by the storm. This only made her feel more alone, cut off from the world’s wind itself. After a time she dropped this and felt the wind and slow whip her face and tug at her hair. Fighting against the elements she could so easily command distracted her, but not enough.

She had been walking an hour or more when she finally realized what she had been walking toward - Jianzhu’s hunting lodge, a small cabin overlooking Yokoya port, one of her many properties inherited from the Gravedigger. Wong and Kirima were hiding out there after helping her take Taku (and taking their share of the loot). Kyoshi began to turn around and walk back. She looked out into the storm - Yokoya was a dark-ish smudge behind the curtain of snowflakes. And the town didn’t hold anything for her, not with Rangi gone. Kyoshi turned back to the cabin. Maybe she would check in on her old co-conspirators. Her old friends, after their own fashion. Kyoshi walked down the rest of the path, rounded the bend and walked up to the house. She knocked.

Inside she heard two voices begin giggling. “Cheese it, it’s the magistrate!” yelped Wong in a stage whisper. A giggle was his only reply. “We didn’t do it!” More laughter.

“It’s Kyoshi, not the magistrate.” She shook her head. Wong wasn’t a particularly silly man, and she’d heard Kirima laugh maybe seven times as long as she’d known her.

“Oh, your holiness! Come in!” More giggling, growing to a cackle.

Kyoshi cautiously opened the door and was greeted by a sharp, pungent smell and a cloud of smoke. She doubled over and began coughing. Wong and Krima were splayed on the floor, wrapped around a smoking hookah. Kirima held the single hose and its dragon mouthpiece in her hand.

“What in the name of Yangchen’s Holy Forehead is going on here?”

“Nothing.”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Definitely not smoking drugs.”

“Certainly Not.”

“Are you smoking Opium in here?”

“No!”

“Spirits no!”

“Don’t do Opium kids!”

“Opium - not even once!”

“I’m offended you’d even suggest it!”

“Do I look like some opium-smoking hungry ghost?”

“Does this even smell like opium?”

Kyoshi sniffed again. She had busted enough triads to recognize the smell of opium - the sickly sweet stench that reminded her of Jianzhu’s incense at the mouth of Father Glowworm’s lair. This wasn’t anything like that - it was acrid and sharp, stinging her nostrils and lingering after she breathed in. It smelled like a skunk-badger’s musk had been set on fire, or like the burning ropes of that pirate ship she’d torched..

“Well if it isn’t opium, what are you smoking?”

“Hashish!”

“Really it is barely drugs.”

“A traditional post-job repast to quiet our minds and spirits.”

“You want any, your holy-Avatarness?” Kirima asked, offering the pipe’s hose to Kyoshi.

Kyoshi stared into the dragon’s open mouth. She had avoided any intoxicants ever since Jianzhu had drugged her - there were too many bad memories. Rangi had gotten drunk a few times, which Kyoshi found hilarious, but Kyoshi never joined her. Losing control over her mind, the one thing she could control, was terrifying. But perhaps her mind and spirit could use a repast - anything to slow her racing thoughts. It’s not like she felt in control of her own mind anyway. Besides, she missed Kirima and Wong and, after her fashion, she trusted them. They were her friends. If the choices were smoking drugs with them or brooding alone, maybe drugs weren’t so bad. And she had read about Hashish in Jianzhu’s herbals - smoked in various corners of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation, it wasn’t particularly feared or condemned like Opium was. It was a “regional eccentricity” the sages had written, like drinking an odd kind of tea. Kyoshi sat down on the floor and accepted the proffered mouthpiece. She breathed in. 

The smoke was cooler than she expected, which was the only thing that kept her from coughing it all out. It tasted vile, but she had expected that. She breathed deep, like she was meditating, taking it all into her lungs. She passed the hose to Kirima.

“Not bad your holiness. I expected you to cough up a lung.”

“It’s an airbender breathing technique.” Yangchen would probably disapprove of misusing this particular technique, but then again this didn’t even make the list of the worst ways she’d abused bending in the past 2 years. “And I’m not ‘your holiness’ - that was Blessed Yangchen.”

“And her holy forehead.”

“And serene eyes.”

“And thrice-blessed fingers.” More laughter from both of them. Even Kyoshi smiled.

“Then what are you, Kyoshi?”

“Apparently I’m Kyoshi the Terrible.”

“Well they just don’t know you!” Wong interjected.

“It’s pretty hard to be scared of you after seeing you fall all over top-knot.” Kirima added. “Or to be scared of Top-Knot after seeing her fall all over you.”

Kyoshi laughed. “Did you two notice her running to meet me? Apparently she’s been doing it for years.”

“I noticed it within 3 days of knowing you both.”

Kyoshi snorted.

Wong looked at her, suddenly serious. “It’s nice to love someone who loves you, Kyoshi. You shouldn’t take that for granted.”

Kyoshi laid down. “It is nice. She really does love me. She loves me!” Kyoshi giggled to herself. “Even her mom likes me.”

“No one’s mother has ever liked me,” Kirima chuckled.

“Everyone’s mom likes me.” Added Wong.

“That’s because you’re a gentle soul, Wong. The moms can sense that about you.” Kyoshi said.

Wong grew serious again, and sat up. “You and Rangi really are a cute couple, Kyoshi. You’re lucky to have her.”

“Yeah I am. She’s so pretty. And brave. And she loves me so much it scares me. Plus she does this thing with her…”

“I don’t want to hear about what Top Knot does with her...whatever, to your...whatever, Kyoshi. I really don’t.”

Kyoshi just laughed. Lying here, passing the mouthpiece around, staring at the ceiling, suddenly her life didn’t seem so bad. 

Kyoshi gave voice to her thoughts. “I suppose things aren’t so bad.”

“Of course they’re not, you’re the Avatar! You’re the most powerful bender in the world.”

“Yeah Kyoshi if you were going to talk about how hard you have it I’m kicking you out into the cold. You have a gorgeous girlfriend who makes an idiot out of herself for you, you have friends who would die for you and you can make a volcano erupt by flicking your wrist.”

“Can you do that Kyoshi?” asked Wong.

Kyoshi stared at her wrist and flipped her fan open and closed. She probably could make a volcano erupt. That would be pretty amazing. But she was soon distracted by the fan and the hand that held it. She’d never really looked at either her fan or her wrist before. The fan was gorgeous - it moved beautifully, shining gold in the light of the lamps, sending a thousand reflections playing against the walls. And her hands…

“Wow my hands are huge.”

Wong laughed. “Of course they are, Kyoshi. You’re a fucking giant.”

Kyoshi just giggled.

Wong continued. “Since you’re the Avatar and all, what body parts are people going to swear by when you’re dead?”

“Probably my feet. ‘By Kyoshi’s enormous feet!’”

“By Kyoshi’s huge hands!”

“By Kyoshi’s flexing biceps!”

“I’m sure if Top Knot were here she’d say ‘By Kyoshi’s fabulous tits!’ or something like that,” laughed Kirima. 

Kyoshi laughed with her. “She probably would.” There were a couple of other things Rangi had praised about Kyoshi that she wasn’t going to mention, even if she was smoking drugs. A woman had to keep her secrets.

As Kyoshi lay there, passing the hose around, she felt less and less like talking and more like simply taking this moment in - the light playing on the ceiling, the smoke spiraling around their heads, the feeling of Kirima and Wong beside her. Her own thoughts became less important. At times, some of her fears started to intrude, but she could simply look at Wong, or even Kirima, and feel safe. She had friends. Her friends were here for her. Rangi...Rangi wasn’t here, but Rangi was probably thinking of her too. And she was never going to tell Rangi about any of this. Oh well.

Kirima and Wong talked some more, about some old friends of theirs, or maybe some joke that they’d been sharing for a decade. Kyoshi didn’t care to follow it all. The sights and smells and sounds around her were more important than any thought or conversation. For a long time she just stared at the burning coal atop the hookah, seeing it blaze with every puff Wong and Kirima took, like the whole pipe really was a breathing dragon. At other times her eye was caught by the embroidered peonies on Wong’s robes, which seem to dance and twirl as the light flickered. She contemplated Wong -large, solid, seemingly too gentle for the criminal life he’d chosen - and Kirima - hardened and chiseled by years of running, she’d never seen the creases around her eyes. Kyoshi saw all her losses - Jesa, Hark, Lek - carved out in these lines. Kyoshi realized she had no idea what sort of lives either of her friends, her sworn brother and sister, had led before they were Daofei. In a sense, maybe none of them had pasts anymore. She had been reborn time and again herself, as the daughter of Jesa and Hark, as an orphan, as a servant and friend of Yun and Rangi, as the Avatar. And when she closed her eyes she could see her own painted face looking down at her....she laughed to herself. These were Drug Thoughts. She was stoned. Even stoned Kyoshi was morose and introspective. She was ridiculous. This was all ridiculous. She started giggling, then talking to the ceiling.

"I should meditate and...and talk to my past lives."

"Kyoshi, did you actually just smoke a bunch of hash and decide to chat with Yangchen?"

"Why not? I'm the fucking Avatar!"

"What would Blessed Yangchen say about you stoned out of your mind?"

"Hrm hard to say. She is pretty accepting. Like, no matter what you do, she loves you. She looks like Jesa though. That's weird."

"Once ran hash and cactus juice for a guy who said he had sold drugs to Avatar Kuruk. Never believed him."

"Oh, he was probably telling the truth. What drugs did Kuruk buy?"

"All of them, supposedly."

"Sounds right. Poor Kuruk."

"So you are not the first hash smoking Avatar?"

"Definitely not." Kyoshi returned her attention to the ceiling for some time. If she thought about anything, she couldn't remember it one moment to the next. Her mind was as clear as it has been in months.

After some time she looked back at Wong and Kirima. She had no idea how much time had passed, but it was getting dark out. She was starving.

“Wong, is there anything to eat? I’m really hungry.” 

“Skipping meals again, your holiness?” Kirima asked. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Top Knot.”

Wong shushed Kirima and smiled at Kyoshi, like he was privy to some great cosmic secret that he was just now revealing to her. “I have steam buns.”

And then he produced steam buns, seemingly pulled from his sleeve. Kyoshi was in awe. She hadn’t seen steam buns, she hadn’t smelled them, but somehow, Wong had kept them all along. Or conjured them from thin air. Anything seemed possible. Wong offered a bun to Kyoshi. 

She took it. It was still warm. “How did you…”  
“I wouldn’t be much of a smuggler if I couldn’t keep some steam buns warm while I got high, would I?”

“I’ve been smoking with Wong for a decade and I still don’t know how he does it.”

Kyoshi took the bun and bit into it. Shredded pork. Plum sauce. It was amazing. She reached for another before she was even done. She shoved it into her mouth. Bean paste. Kinda sweet. Incredible. Her mouth full, Kyoshi realized her predicament and motioned futilely until Wong, grinning, produced a cup of tea from the pot he’d been brewing for the past 5 minutes. Kyoshi washed the food down.

“Thank you, Wong.”

“He is the master of this. After every job for the past 10 years and more - hashish, steam buns, and tea. It’s perfect.” Rarely had Kyoshi praise anyone or anything so effusively. She wasn’t about to argue.

The tea began to clear Kyoshi’s mind, or at least enliven it. Words seemed to matter more, though sometimes she caught herself just staring into her tea cup for minutes at a time. The steam made such lovely patterns…

“You should really eat all of yours before Kyoshi just eats all of these,” Wong was telling Kirima.

Kyoshi looked up. She felt like she should object, but she would be lying if she claimed she wasn’t about to eat the entire box of buns. Fortunately Kirima and Wong dug in and saved the Avatar’s dignity from herself.

“So this is what you always do after jobs?”

“And only after them. Don’t want to get stoned before a job.”

“Takes you off your edge.”

“Speaking of jobs, you two were incredible, I…”

Wong shushed her. “Uhp uhp uph! No talking about jobs when we’re getting high.”

“This is about relaxing, Kyoshi. Hard as that is for you.”

Relaxing. Right. Kyoshi smelled her tea and took another sip. She was relaxed. She could enjoy this moment. This is why she was here. Some of her concerns really did seem less important. The Earth Kingdom sages hated her. Let them. They were shitheads anyway. She would need to deal with them, of course. But the time for niceties had passed, and she had never been good at them anyway. Her face, her daofei face. That was all they needed to see. All they needed to know was that she was watching them. He friends could see Kyoshi, freckles and all. Rangi could see all of her. But the rest of the world, they could see the Avatar, and they could say whatever they liked about her. But they would fear her…

“Kyoshi? Kyoshi?”

“Uh, yes?”

“We said relax. You are about to break your teacup.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“You look like you’re plotting something, Kyoshi. I know that face,” Kirima said.

“Plotting? Me? Never.”

“No plotting while we’re getting high!” Wong said sternly.

“No talking about jobs and no plotting. Got it.”

Kirima and Wong fell back into laughing at some other in-joke from a decade ago. Somethink Hark had said. Hark. Her father. Normally she was so angry at him, but now, with this tea in her hands, coming down from being high as a bison-kite, she couldn’t be angry. Hark had been...as he was. So had Jesa. And despite all their mistakes she had a girlfriend who loved her and she could make a volcano erupt with her hands. Probably.

“What was Hark like?” Kyoshi asked.

Wong and Kirima stared at each other. “Uhm, do you want to know, Kyoshi?”

“Sure. You keep talking about him. Tell me.”

“Well, he was very funny.” Started Wong.

“He wasn’t just funny, he could set you at ease. You trusted Hark.”

“Even though you really shouldn’t trust Hark.”

“He was charming, but not fake, like a lot of charming men.”

“He was the heart of the Flying Opera Company. Jesa was the brains. But he was the heart. You always knew he would be there for you. He could just...keep you going, even when things were hopeless. He kept us together through the bad old days.”

“The bad old days?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t all easy going even with a flying bison. This was back when we had Xu Ping An on one side and the Gravedigger on the other. Things were bad before they came back, but before the Gravedigger buried all those yellow necks, things went from bad to worse”

“Small crews and small-timers everywhere were getting squeezed between them. A lot of them ended up dead.”

“We could have all ended up dead. The Yellow Necks didn’t want anyone around who wasn’t bending the knee. And the Gravedigger, as far as he was concerned we were all Daofei. Smuggling rice wine might as well be burning a village if you were on his bad side.”

“We stayed independent. Because of our bending, because of our bison, but mostly because Jesa was too smart to let us get caught up in all that shit and Hark was just...good enough to keep us believing in the Company and each other through all of it.”

“I didn’t know things were that bad. I always figured the Yellow Necks would have made things easier but…”

“But you see how the big bosses are.”

“I have.” Kyoshi said, choosing her words laboriously, fighting against her drug-clouded mind to make a crucial point. “Governors, big daofei bosses, they’re all the same.”

Wong nodded vigorously. “And their goons. Most of those yellow necks, or autumn blooms? They might as well be abiders. They just want someone to tell them what to do. Maybe they just want to beat people up or hack people up. I don’t know why they didn’t just become soldiers. Or some magistrate’s deputies. Well, that isn’t why I became a daofei.”

“Why did you become a daofei?”

“Because I’d rather spend a lifetime on the run then dig another man’s ditch for half a bowl of rice like my father did, Kyoshi. You know what it’s like, I think.”

“I do.” Kyoshi thought about all the misery of the Earth Kingdom, and all of it the fault of rich sages who would rather extort peasants with rent and taxes to fund their gardens and let them play pai sho and write poetry instead of working for a living. But what was she going to do about it? She had torn down an entire government in one of the country’s larger cities, and most of the citizens had just stood dumbstruck. Some had been afraid to take the Avatar’s gift of riches taken from the very people who had been robbing them. They’d been waiting for the magistrates to show up again and tell them what to do.

“You’re plotting again, Kyoshi.”

“I’m not. I’m just thinking...about the abiders. About how they live their whole lives paying rent and taxes and showing up for labor levies and getting conscripted and...they could stop it all. They could just...not abide it anymore.” And that was the only thing that would stop this, Kyoshi thought. She couldn’t free people who weren’t willing to free themselves. Not even if she killed every governor and scattered all their armies. Besides, so many peasants just dreamed of being tyrants themselves. Some of them were petty tyrants already. They’d certainly been tyrants to her, and to Lek.

Wong interrupted her thoughts by agreeing again. “But that’s just it. They’re abiders. It’s what they do. They abide. They do as they’re bidden. That’s why I can’t feel sorry for them. I’m just...frustrated. Why can’t they just stand up for themselves?”

“Maybe someday they will. And if they do, the Avatar will be with them.”

Wong looked impressed. Kirima shook her head. “You are the worst smoking buddy, Kyoshi. You’re a brillant fighter, and you are a shockingly good burglar, but you are a terrible smoking buddy. It’s like getting high with Lao Ge crossed with an air nomad and some Pai Sho playing sage.”

Kyoshi laughed. That comparison was more apt than Kirima realized.

“But thank you, Kyoshi. With what you did in Taku the city is safe again for small timers. You’ve actually been very good for business.”

“Oh am I?”

“You’ve beat up or run out just about every big crime boss in the Earth Kingdom. It lets us smugglers do our runs in peace without some fat cat demanding his cut.”

“Yeah all the little guys can breathe a little easier. With all those big bosses, a guy couldn’t make a dishonest living around these parts.”

Kyoshi bowed to Kirima and Wong. “Everything I do, Kirima and Wong, I do for the ordinary people of the world. The Avatar isn’t here to protect the sages, or the Fire Lord, or the Chiefs of the Water Tribe or the gurus of the airbenders. They can protect themselves.” Kyoshi drew her fan and swept it open above her head. “It’s ordinary people like small times crooks. The bookmakers, the moonshiners, the crooked pawnbrokers, the pai sho hustlers, I do it, all of it, for you.” Kyoshi kept a straight face for a solid three seconds.

And then she, Kirima and Wong all burst out laughing.

“Okay that was funny, Kyoshi. You’re not the worst smoking buddy after all.”


	2. Chapter 2: No Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few months after chapter 1, Rangi discovers Kyoshi's post job method of relaxation. Rangi processes her feelings...ish.

The sunlight felt good on Rangi’s skin. It was so warm and comforting and...Rangi bolted upright. Sunlight on her skin. She had slept in. She, Lieutenant Sei'naka Rangi, had slept in. She leapt up and off the bed and nearly ran out the door when the breeze on her chest reminded her that she was naked. She stopped short, and her loose hair fell into her eyes. She nearly punched a fireball through the wall out of frustration. So much to do, and she was already starting late. She took a breath and steadied herself. She surveyed her own body and her surroundings like she did after battle. She was naked, her hair was loose, and the bed and the whole room around it was a wreck. She was aching in even more places than she had after last week’s fight, including a few exceedingly tender ones. Judging by the angle of the light, it was after noon, and she was still tired. All of this was the fault of one woman: Avatar Kyoshi, the incarnation of cosmic balance, the bridge of the two worlds, and, as far as Rangi was concerned, the most vexed and delicious temptress in all four nations. It was the six thousandth, eight hundred and fifty-first day of the Era of Kyoshi. 

Rangi got dressed hurriedly. Kyoshi could handle the mess in the room later - the mess in their room, she dared think. Kyoshi was not punctual but she was fastidious. But if she wasn’t punctual, why was she up and out when you were lying in bed? Rangi asked herself. Kyoshi had stayed up as late as her, and had woken up just as early before dawn, and gone back to sleep with her, promising to rise with the dawn when it came. Rangi damned her weakness. Rangi could feel herself turning into a hedonist in that woman’s arms, and often enough she barely minded. Nights or even mornings in bed were delightful as long as she didn’t sleep in. There was only one solution, only one way to drive the softness out of her. More training. And if she was going to punish herself, Rangi wasn’t going to let the Avatar get off easy. “She’d gotten off easily enough last night anyway,” a smirking voice said in Rangi’s head. Rangi nearly smacked herself. She’d given such thoughts free enough reign. They had their time and place, and that time and place had passed for now. Now was the time for business. For hard work. The time to clear her head. Rangi put on her silk arming-clothes, and then donned her armour. Finally, she combed her hair and tied it into her top-knot and set her hairpiece. She strode out into the cool spring air of the courtyard, ready for a day of hard training. Still, she allowed herself a broad smirk. She would not, in a thousand lifetimes, have done anything differently, last night or early this morning. She just wished she’d done it all and still gotten up on time.

She marched across the courtyard to the Avatar’s offices, opened the door and immediately turned to the Avatar’s desk. It was empty. The brush and inkstone were laid just so, as Kyoshi always left them. Rangi turned to Jinpa’s desk to find the monk smiling pleasantly at her.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant. I trust you slept well? But are you alright? I hadn’t realized you had wounded your neck in our battle with that robber sage in the Kolau mountains.”

Rangi stopped short. She hadn’t looked in a mirror to see the livid, bite-shaped bruises growing all up and down her neck, even over the high collar of her gorget. Rangi felt her face burning. It was a good thing for Jinpa you couldn’t challenge pacifists to an Agni Kai. 

Jinpa took Rangi’s silence as an invitation to keep talking. He gestured to the letters he'd been reviewing and continued. “I must say, defeating and disgracing Governor Shiu-Fung may be the most uniformly popular thing Kyoshi has ever done. If she keeps this up people may even start liking her.”

Rangi welcomed the change of subject like a drunk welcomes their first dram of baiju in the morning. “People are ingrates. They don’t deserve…” Rangi stopped herself. She changed course before she began a full-fledged tirade in defense of Kyoshi or listed all the ways she had bettered the world already "...but of course everyone will be happy that the paths to Omashu are free of the governor’s unauthorized tolls.” 

“Precisely - and more than that, the people walking those paths are also free of his...rough...collection methods. Of course the common folk love seeing the governor’s riches distributed back into their hands, so they are grateful to Kyoshi. The merchants are willing to let the peasants keep their silver if their trade routes are clear and Omashu...Omashu’s elders say they feel really independent for the first time since Kuruk’s day. Kyoshi has done good before. But she’s rarely made everyone happy. Take that time she solved that spat between the spirits and the peasants. Getting the peasants to gather wood in that sage's forest rather than the sacred grove meant that the sage needed to buy charcoal for his foundry on the open market. The peasants were happy, and the spirits were happy, but the sage and his sage friends were not. And the sages write this all down, and carve it on woodblocks, and so what they think is known from here to Ba Sing Se. But this Shiu-Fung affair? It leaves no one unhappy but Shiu-Fung himself. Everyone hated him, and they are already printing Kyoshi’s praises in Omashu. You might ask the Avatar to do more of this...kind of thing?”

Rangi hadn’t known many air nomads, but she hadn’t known any of them to talk about politics quite so cynically. Maybe those Pai Sho buddies of his had been filling his head with worldly ideas. Rangi waved Jinpa’s suggestion away. “I take you point, Jinpa, but Kyoshi does what she wants,. I’ve learned that much. Speaking of which, where is she?”

“She went to visit Wong and Kirima. Said she wanted to thank them for all their help.”

Rangi nodded, bowed, and left. She stopped, swung back into the office, took the shawl Kyoshi kept hanging behind her desk and wrapped it around her neck. She walked back out again without another word or glance at Jinpa. She headed out of Kyoshi’s modest country house and past Yokoya, down the road to Jianzhu’s old hunting cabin in the hills. It was the preferred hideout of Kyoshi’s two daofei compatriots. Rangi passed dogwoods and azaleas that were bare except for their just-budding flowers. The sun was warm but the air was still cool. Back home the cherry blossoms would be just starting, and purple-streaked magnolia blooms would be reaching their peak. It was refreshing to be outside and walking with purpose. More than that, the walk into the hills gave Rangi some time to think back on the past week and the past days.

Their battle with Shiu-Fung and his thugs had ended well for Avatar Kyoshi. Jinpa was right - the sages rarely wrote anything good about her. Yet the battle itself had been better than all the praises and letters of thanks. It had gone smoothly in a way few things had for them in the last thirty months. Some of that was Wong and Kirima - having them rob the governor blind while Rangi and Kyoshi fought him was Kyoshi’s idea, but it took Wong and Kirima to pull off the heist. Kyoshi loved heists and Rangi swore the woman almost seemed to miss larceny. Wong and Kirima had played their part brilliantly, but it was Kyoshi who deserved most of the credit. In battle against a dozen earthbenders she had been a fluid whirlwind of war fans and all four elements and bending styles. Rangi had taken rocks to the chest and had nearly been thrown down the mountain. Kyoshi had barely been touched and barely broken a sweat. She had looked more like a beautiful, invincible spirit of vengeance than a mortal woman. The Avatar had been training and sparring with a few bending and martial arts masters who were more interested in her mystique than put off by her infamy, and her practice had paid off. Still, some of her firebending forms were off. Kyoshi had mastered all forms of bending but her blend of the styles could sometimes muddle her effect in one style when she combined it with another. And Rangi could use practice herself. She couldn’t have her student upstage her. So today would be a training day. Stance training, basic forms, and then more advanced Katas. She might even let Kyoshi mix in other forms of bending while she kept a watchful eye on the Avatar’s fundamentals. It would start late, certainly, but there was a lot of work they could do even with only an afternoon. 

Rangi came to the hunting cabin. Curiously, she could hear laughter coming from inside. Not just laughter. Giggling. And not just giggling, but Kyoshi’s giggling, as well as two other voices..Kyoshi almost never giggled, unless Rangi was kissing her- 

“Did you really just say that, Kyoshi.” 

“I really did. The look on your face!”

“You know, you’re not what I expected from an Avatar.”

“You’re just blinded by her sacred mien, Wong. You can’t see how holy she is.”

Rangi furrowed her brow and tried to open the door. It was locked.

“Oh no, it’s the magistrate! The Avatar made me do it, officer!” Wong yelped.

More laughter.

Rangi pinched her nose. She was locked out, she had training to do, and they were laughing at nothing. This was ridiculous. “It’s not the magistrate, it’s Rangi. The Avatar has training.”

“Oh Rangi! You’re up! I let you sleep because you looked so tired after last night. And this morning. Come on in.”

“The door’s still locked, rocks-for-brains. Unlock it now! You’re already up to thirty minutes in horse stance for playing hooky.”

“Shit, if I don’t open the door, I guess I don’t need to do stance training at all. But...then I don’t get to see my girlfriend. Hrm. I must remain still, and wait for circumstances to answer this riddle for me.”

Rangi’s temper nearly exploded at this pure manifestation of sloth disguised as neutral jing. Then Wong and Kirima spoke up.

“Can we even let her in? I think this is a sacred ritual for our sworn brotherhood.”

“We like your girlfriend, Kyoshil, but she hasn’t sworn the oaths. This is a sacred post-job ritual.”

“Yeah it’s sacred.”

Now Rangi was just confused.

“But isn’t she like our abider adopted cousin?”

“I don’t think we get adopted cousins, Kyoshi.”

“I don’t know, Kirima, she is like an adopted member of the brotherhood. I’m with Kyoshi.”

“You can’t just override the Code with a majority vote, Wong.”

“Well I’m the Avatar and I’m decreeing Rangi is our brotherhood’s cousin. By Adoption. Also all ties in Pai Sho will now be broken with a headbutting contest.” 

“I support that rule change.”

What in the name of the spirits was Kyoshi going on about? Rangi was close to breaking the door down and dragging Kyoshi out for training. She thought she saw steam coming from her own nostrils.

Then the door’s latch clicked and the door opened.

Kyoshi stood stuped in the doorway, and smoke billowed out from around her. Rangi gagged and coughed. Were they burning wet socks to keep warm? Whatever that smell was, it was awful.

“Kyoshi, what in the name of Szeto’s Sacred Seal are you doing?”

“I’m smoking drugs Rangi.You want any?”

“You’re smoking WHAT!?”

Wong’s voice came from inside the room. “You know, drugs. Hashish. Hash. Spirit Smoke. Drunken Dragon’s breath. Vaatu’s Kimchi.”

“Well it’s cold out Rangi. You’re wearing my scarf. Come on in.” Kyoshi went back in and lay down on the floor. Rangi was too dumbstruck to reply or to rage or to storm off, so she complied. Like she had complied with so many insane ideas Kyoshi had sprung on her.

It was the six thousandth, eight hundred and fifty-first day of the Era of Kyoshi, and the Avatar was spending it getting stoned out of her mind. 

Rangi sat down and looked at the three people sprawled around her and the hookah in the center. It’s coal was dying. No one was talking. It was hot in here, but there was no way Rangi was taking her scarf off in front of Kirima. Rangi almost felt like screaming, but she had no idea what she would say. Confronted with a situation she had never even imagined, she was as indecisive as an earthbender laying an ambush. Her Jing was neutral and she couldn’t help it.

The others sat in stoned silence for a while, and Rangi just looked at one, then the other. She was looking for an excuse to say something, to uppraid Kyoshi, but this was just so damned awkward. She had such wonderful training plans for the afternoon as she walked up the path. She had had even more wonderful training plans for all of today yesterday evening, before Kyoshi had pulled her close and given her that look and set everything on its ear. Hei Ran always liked to tell cadets that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Few of Rangi’s plans survived contact with Kyoshi.

Finally Kyoshi spoke. “You know, it’s funny, you talking about Szeto. I was just thinking about talking to him..” Rangi didn’t know how to respond to that, either.

“Still going on about meditating and talking to your past lives? Who was Szeto?”

Rangi just watched the exchange, in awe of the absurdity in front of her. Two drugged criminals and the incarnation of all that was good and just were discussing her nation’s most revered paragon. The criminals were her friends, somehow, and the incarnation of all that was good and just was the woman she loved. And was also the woman she wanted to shake by the shoulders and drag down the mountain.

Shocked as she was, Rangi was almost impressed. Kyoshi always found new ways to surprise her. She always had. Yet it was still only the placidity of the other three that kept Rangi from exploding in rage at the sacrilege of it all. They were defiling the Avatar’s lungs. Or was the Avatar defiling her own lungs? Or her mind? Rangi couldn’t decide. But there was nothing to say, it would be like yelling at children, or at Akita-Badger puppies. 

Rangi stood up and walked out the door, into the cool afternoon air. She couldn’t breath in there. She needed to clear her head. No one stopped her.

She could still hear Kyoshi through the door. 

“He was one of the great Avatars. A great fire nation hero. The greatest bureaucrat in history!”

“You get high and you want to talk to dead bureaucrats.” Kirima laughed and shook her head.

Rangi nearly joined her, in spite of her shock. This was the same woman who tried to sneak out of bed to read about the Omashu sewer system after sex, when she should be sleeping.

“Well I shouldn’t talk to Szeto anyway, it wouldn’t be..respectful to talk to him the first time when I’m like...this.” Kyoshi said seriously.

“But it would be okay to talk to Yangchen. Or Kuruk.”

“I think so.” Kyoshi said, nodding. 

“Avatars are complicated.” Wong concluded. 

Rangi nearly laughed, and walked off. She still didn’t know what to think, so she paced, and tried to lay it out in her mind. She wanted to laugh, and to scream, and to drag her girlfriend out and chide her, and she wanted to just go back inside and put Kyoshi’s head in her lap and enjoy Wong’s company and run her fingers through her lover’s hair. She couldn’t even say why she was angry. Was it that the Avatar should be above that all? That her girlfriend shouldn’t be drugging herself? Was it that she was tired of feeling like Kyoshi was pulling the rug out from under her at every turn? Had her mother felt this way when she’d walked in on Kuruk with a Hookah in his mouth and a bottle in his hand? At least Kyoshi wasn’t in bed with another woman. At least it wasn’t opium. The more Rangi tried to untangle how she felt, the more frustrated she got. She walked the same sixty yards of path just below the cabin, back and forth. She wanted to make a fire first and burn a tree, but she knew from experience that never helped. She was frustrated at herself, and perhaps she was lonely. She had wanted to train with Kyoshi. She had wanted to, and she’d never even told Kyoshi that. Rangi nearly slapped herself in the head. Of course Kyoshi had run off, she didn’t even know Rangi had plans for them together. And now Rangi would either spend a day training alone, or she would spend it with a very high Avatar. Hei Ran was right, Rangi needed to tell her girlfriend what she wanted more often.

Rangi stopped pacing and started her breathing exercises. Inhale through the nose. Hold. Exhale through the mouth. Feel the heat leave you. Relax your fists, slacken your arms. Unplant your feet. Disengage. ‘This isn’t a battle’ she heard Hei Ran say. This wasn’t a battle. Kyoshi was just on drugs. Rangi looked down the path. She had spent enough time training alone, and there would be other days to train. On the other hand, Kyoshi high was actually kind of funny, when she thought about it. Rangi walked up the path and back into the cabin. For the holiest person in the world, the Avatar was an exceptionally bad influence.

The smoke blew out the door. The hookah was now extinguished, and everyone was on the floor around it. Wong was apologetic. “I’m sorry Rangi, we smoked all the hashish. We would have saved some if we knew you were coming back.”

Rangi tilted her head in surprise. Rangi had never actually wanted to smoke hash. But she was genuinely touched by Wong’s concern.

“I have some baiju, though. It’s the kind you like.”

‘The kind she liked’ was a stretch. Rangi had first tried this moonshine rotgut when Kyoshi was recovering from her burns. Rangi had been trying to drown her sorrows. She’d never done that before and she’d drunk so much that Wong had to babysit her all night to keep her from falling off the roof or challenging a drunk day laborer to an Agni Kai. That hadn’t kept her from drinking it again, though. And by the spirits, Rangi needed a drink now. 

Wong poured her one. She pinched her nose and knocked it back. If you didn’t smell it, you were less likely to spit it up immediately. No wonder Hei Ran had Arrack shipped in from back home by the barrel.

Kyoshi also remembered Rangi’s drunken escapades. “Be careful Rangi. I’m pretty messed up. I can’t hold your...I can’t take care of you if you get sick.” Kyoshi lifted her arm and stroked Rangi’s leg.

Rangi looked down at the stoned idiot lying at her feet. Kyoshi had taken care of her when she was staggeringly, stupidly drunk. Kyoshi had saved her hair from being befouled when she puked. She’d nursed her the next day with only gentle mocking. If Kyoshi had done that for her, couldn’t she do this for Kyoshi? Couldn’t she allow her beloved a few indulgences? Rangi exhaled and took in Kyoshi’s face. She looked happy. Relaxed. At peace. All the ways that Rangi wanted her to feel all the time. The ways she felt so rarely. And she was with her friends. 

‘She isn’t punishing herself. She’s not destroying herself. She’s just enjoying herself. And even stoned out of her mind she cares enough about you not to mention you nearly puking on your hair in front of anyone else. Let her have this.’ Rangi thought. ‘Besides, this really is kind of funny.’ 

If Rangi was going to do this, she wasn’t going to do it sober. She held out her cup for Wong and he poured her another. 

“So topknot, what’s with the scarf?”

Kyoshi started snickering. Rangi felt her rage returning. On second thought, maybe she should just throw a fireball through the wall.

The rest of the afternoon was inane, and silly, and surprisingly enjoyable in a way. Somehow Wong produced steam buns, and Kyoshi and Rangi fought over who was going to give their steam buns to the other, until Kirima gave her buns to both of them just to shut them up. There was tea. This perked the stoners up but sent Rangi entirely around the bend. Despite the tea, she fell asleep. When she woke up with a start, Kyoshi was lying with her head in Rangi’s lap and talking excitedly about metaphysics or something.

“What I’m saying is, I don’t think there’s four elements. There’s one element. In four forms. I can just feel it, Wong. Earth is just like, hard water.”

“Isn’t that ice?”

“No Wong, ice is hard, cold, wet water. Earth is hard, warm-ish dry water. And fire is like, hot air. Or dry, hot, windy water.”

“And you can feel this all in the Avatar State?”

“And I can hear the voices of all my past lives, too.”

Kirima looked over at Kyoshi. “Kyoshi, are you sure you feel all the elements as one, and hear all your past lives...and that you’re not just on drugs?”

Kyoshi laughed, then Rangi. Kirima’s serious expression disintegrated into giggles. Wong didn’t look like he got the joke. 

Rangi looked down sleepily at Kyoshi and smiled down at her. This was...nice. They so rarely could touch each other in front of anyone but Hei Ran and Autine Mui without feeling like they were making a statement. Like they were committing an outrage as brazen as Kyoshi’s daofei makeup and insulting letters to sages. After all, every time she put her hand around Kyoshi’s waist she was flagrantly rejecting the mores of the Earth Kingdom. Sometimes Rangi wished that she could just have her girlfriend back home, where at least people would ignore their youthful dalliance. But now, here, Rangi was surrounded by outlaws who lived to reject every more of the Earth Kingdom already. And among them Rangi was relaxed, like she hadn’t been in a long time. Rangi bent down and kissed Kyoshi’s forehead and stroked her hair. This wasn’t bad at all.

By the time they left, it was getting dark, and it was Kyoshi’s turn to help Rangi. Those four cups of Baiju had really taken it out of her. Walking back home in the twilight, Rangi realized she was reaching the part of getting drunk when you got really introspective. She hated that part. She tried to resist musing on anything in particular. She tried to pay attention to what Kyoshi was saying, which was serious.

“I have been thinking. I don’t think that I need to show this face to the world. They can see the other one. That’s the only Kyoshi they need to know. My daofei face. They can fear me. They should fear me. They don’t need to know me.” Kyoshi turned to Rangi and smiled at her sadly. “This face I want to save for you, and for my friends.”

“Well I like your face, Kyoshi.” 

Kyoshi laughed. Rangi looked up at her and the setting sun painting that face red and gold. For a moment the light and shadows cast it into relief. She looked like she was wearing her daofei makeup. She looked distant, stern, ageless. This was a woman who held depths Rangi could never plumb. A woman with secrets that she would never speak aloud to anyone. Rangi might know Kyoshi’s real face but she would never even see the whole woman. There was always something new, something out of view in Kyoshi. But she’d always been like this. Rangi had never guessed just how much there was to that pretty servant girl with the kind eyes and nervous smile. But she had felt something there. And when she hadn’t known her, she had trusted her. She trusted her, even if she didn’t know her and never would. So she followed Kyoshi into the unknown, down a road much more mysterious than the darkening path back to Yokoya.

Damnit. I really hate it when Baiju makes me think all this pensive shit, Rangi thought.

Fin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rangi is hard to write. While Kyoshi is obsessively introspective, Rangi isn't, but she is more reflective and emotionally intelligent about herself than say...Korra. so if the writing style was pretty different, that is why.


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